paper the first

This is for the moms.

Well, I guess, this one's really for me.  I love these shoes.

Also, a thought:  Roses have never appealed to me.  Maybe because their perfume is too heady and sophisticated.  These roses were made perfect, though, when they were delivered to our room along with the chocolate truffles and sparkling wine.  Perfect only because we plucked them, a petal at a time, not just to scatter the bed (cliche!  cliche!) in blooms, but to take each petal as a moment to thank the other.  To love each other.  Not x-rated, people, but out loud declarations of what we hold dearest about the other.  "I love that...I love when...I love your...I love you..."

We fell asleep (in the deep, dark hours after the Windsor Hotel's open blues night) on our bed of roses.

Evening stroll, night on the town.

Morning run, the "We love Winnipeg" appreciation route.  Follow the river, cross the bridges, circle Louis (naked and not).

It's been a year!

something new

Recently, one of our friends told us, "When I turned 30, I learned how to ride a bike.  I started trying the things I was always afraid of doing.  If it don't do them now, when will I?"

I could totally relate.  I have a feeling this "Why the hell not?" attitude extends to many.  Maybe you don't have to turn 30, but at some point you want to experience the things you've denied yourself, out of fear, out of apathy.

 

I turned 30.  2 months later, I ran the Opasquayak Indian Days race.  The last time I lined up for that run was 15 years ago.  It was a great run.  Hard and fast.  I may have even run it better than I did at 15.  I spent half the race next to a girl whose name I love (Samantha Caribou).  I did not run it last year, when my sister did.  I don't know if I'd race against her.  Run with her, yeah, but race?  Who knows, maybe my attitude will change when I'm 31.  Or 40.

I turned 30.  One month later, I had my knees up to my chin, feet strapped to a board.  Wakeboarding.  My excitement jittered over my nerves, ruled over the scared.  Darc and Jord laughed, disbelieving, as I cut back and forth over the wake, dipsy-doodling, changing direction.  After that first run, too dumb to know that I did it well, I was hooked.  Two weeks later, I pulled Steve up.  Summer romance blossomed.  Hopefully that loving feeling returns next year.

"I will drink life to the lees/ (...) Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough/ Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades/ For ever and for ever when I move. / How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! / As though to breathe were life. (...) Come my friends, / 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. (...)"                                            -Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson